Amorphous/crystalline silicon interface passivation: Ambient-temperature dependence and implications for solar cell performance
Abstract
Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells feature amorphous silicon passivation films, which enable very high voltages. We report how such passivation increases with operating temperature for amorphous silicon stacks involving doped layers and decreases for intrinsic-layer-only passivation. We discuss the implications of this phenomenon on the solar cell's temperature coefficient, which represents an important figure-of-merit for the energy yield of devices deployed in the field. We show evidence that both open-circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) are affected by these variations in passivation and quantify these temperature-mediated effects, compared with those expected from standard diode equations. We confirm that devices with high Voc values at 25°C show better high-temperature performance. Thus, we also argue that the precise device architecture, such as the presence of charge-transport barriers, may affect the temperature-dependent device performance as well.
- Authors:
-
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Neuchatel (Switzerland)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Neuchatel (Switzerland)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1229738
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0006335
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 5; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2156-3381
- Publisher:
- IEEE
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; temperature coefficient; passivation; silicon heterojunction; solar cells
Citation Formats
Seif, Johannes P., Krishnamani, Gopal, Demaurex, Benedicte, Ballif, Christophe, and Wolf, Stefaan De. Amorphous/crystalline silicon interface passivation: Ambient-temperature dependence and implications for solar cell performance. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2397602.
Seif, Johannes P., Krishnamani, Gopal, Demaurex, Benedicte, Ballif, Christophe, & Wolf, Stefaan De. Amorphous/crystalline silicon interface passivation: Ambient-temperature dependence and implications for solar cell performance. United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2397602
Seif, Johannes P., Krishnamani, Gopal, Demaurex, Benedicte, Ballif, Christophe, and Wolf, Stefaan De. Mon .
"Amorphous/crystalline silicon interface passivation: Ambient-temperature dependence and implications for solar cell performance". United States. https://doi.org/10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2397602. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1229738.
@article{osti_1229738,
title = {Amorphous/crystalline silicon interface passivation: Ambient-temperature dependence and implications for solar cell performance},
author = {Seif, Johannes P. and Krishnamani, Gopal and Demaurex, Benedicte and Ballif, Christophe and Wolf, Stefaan De},
abstractNote = {Silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells feature amorphous silicon passivation films, which enable very high voltages. We report how such passivation increases with operating temperature for amorphous silicon stacks involving doped layers and decreases for intrinsic-layer-only passivation. We discuss the implications of this phenomenon on the solar cell's temperature coefficient, which represents an important figure-of-merit for the energy yield of devices deployed in the field. We show evidence that both open-circuit voltage (Voc) and fill factor (FF) are affected by these variations in passivation and quantify these temperature-mediated effects, compared with those expected from standard diode equations. We confirm that devices with high Voc values at 25°C show better high-temperature performance. Thus, we also argue that the precise device architecture, such as the presence of charge-transport barriers, may affect the temperature-dependent device performance as well.},
doi = {10.1109/JPHOTOV.2015.2397602},
journal = {IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics},
number = 3,
volume = 5,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2015},
month = {Mon Mar 02 00:00:00 EST 2015}
}
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Works referencing / citing this record:
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